---
title: (He had his mummy’s leave to paddle, or else he would never have don… — Just so stories · tree and pragmatics
description: (He had his mummy’s leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it, because he was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.) Who acts: sea. A sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Whale Got His Throat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Just so stories, How the Whale Got His Throat, sentence 15

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(He had his mummy’s leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it, because he was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.)

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**Who acts:** sea · **What happens:** have, paddle, not do, be · **To what, where:** leave, man

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This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Whale Got His Throat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sea), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2781:2:15
# text = (He had his mummy’s leave to paddle, or else he would never have done it, because he was a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity.)
1	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	mummy	mummy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	leave	leave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	paddle	paddle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	else	else	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
17	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	ccomp	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	infinite	infinite	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	resource	resource	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	32	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	30	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	sagacity	sagacity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | sea | sea's mummy's leave |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leave=Patient |
| 2 | **paddle** | to-infinitive | sea *not said here* | sea's mummy's leave *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **do** | would · perfect | sea | leave |  |  |  | else *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 4 | **is a** | past | sea | a man |  |  |  | of infinite resource and sagacity | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, Project Gutenberg book 2781 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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